Mandryk: Choosing combining over COVID a wrong move for Moe
Really, the focus for Moe and his cabinet right now needs to be on their day jobs.
Author of the article:
Murray Mandryk
Publishing date:
Sep 27, 2021 • 1 day ago • 3 minute read •
Premier Scott Moe posted on his Facebook page a photo of the view from “his office†this past weekend — a lovely Saskatchewan fall farm scene of a harvested field from the cab of a Case combine.
In any other year, most in this province would have thought little of our farmer-premier slipping away from his regular $173,885-a-year office job (that’s low, compared with other Canadian premiers) for a little weekend combining.
Inside the Marble Palace: The blue wall holds in Saskatchewan
Even as September harvest rolled around a year ago — before he reapplied for his day job during the 2020 provincial campaign — there would have been little fuss about Moe spending the weekend combining.
On Sept. 1, 2020, Saskatchewan had accumulated only 1,619 COVID-19 cases. Consider how close we came to hitting that number in this past weekend alone.
Moe’s government reported 1,044 new cases on Saturday and Sunday, (although it’s accurate to say Saskatchewan added 1,099 new cases because it added 55 previously unreported cases it released on Saturday).
Either way, it was a record COVID-19 weekend for Saskatchewan. This should be alarming to everyone in the province … especially the premier.
Ontario — where the province’s 14,789,778 citizens were doing a lot less combining — reported1,293 more cases this weekend. Saskatchewan, with a population of 1,179,906, had 1,044 new cases.
This province also saw seven more deaths (670 since the beginning of COVID-19 and 63 so far this month). As of Sunday, we had a record 4,864 active cases and 281 hospitalizations.
We should all hope and pray that there will not be serious farm accidents this fall. Our ICUs are full. Doctors and epidemiologists say we haven’t yet hit the peak of this fourth wave. Sadly, those ICU beds are being emptied by people dying.
By now, you get the disconnection emerging from Moe’s social media post this weekend — a big problem that will only further splinter a province already divided between left and right, urban and rural and (most critically, right now) vaccinated and unvaccinated.
About half the comments — presumably, from fans of the Saskatchewan Party premier or those who share Moe’s rural roots — were wildly enthusiastic about Moe’s post. One gets that.
City people can’t fully appreciate the joy of harvest that rewards you for a year’s sweat and soothes many more years of heartache in what can be a cruel way to make a living. Many of these people are already living in self-isolation because they have picked a job that feeds people. COVID-19 isn’t and has never been as big a worry.
But the other comments on Moe’s Facebook post were full of visceral anger over what they viewed as a less-than-subliminal message that all is well with at least half the province that is carrying on business as usual.
Sure, many were likely politically motivated in their criticism. But many were simply appalled Moe would use the forum he uses to broadcast all his COVID-19 policy pronouncements for nothing more than a little image polishing by reminding voters that he’s just a regular guy burdened by extraordinary circumstances.
As one non-partisan observer said: “I wish he would just bail.â€
Didn’t Moe hammer Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week for taking the summer off and leaving him burdened with the problem of COVID-19 on northern reserves? Didn’t Moe also demand doctors work harder to sell the vaccine message?
So wouldn’t a better photo op have been the premier at a pop-up vaccine clinic to deal with what is the lowest vaccination rate in the country?
Right now, Moe’s government is hiding modelling numbers from doctors, seeing adults in kids’ beds at the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital, cancelling paediatric surgeries and organ transplants and seeing massive transmission in kids with no provincewide guidelines on when school children need to self-isolate.
Shouldn’t we be hearing from Moe today? Shouldn’t we be hearing from Health Minister Paul Merriman, who has been silent for a month?
Really, the focus for Moe and his cabinet needs to be on their day jobs.
Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
Really, the focus for Moe and his cabinet right now needs to be on their day jobs.
Author of the article:
Murray Mandryk
Publishing date:
Sep 27, 2021 • 1 day ago • 3 minute read •
Premier Scott Moe posted on his Facebook page a photo of the view from “his office†this past weekend — a lovely Saskatchewan fall farm scene of a harvested field from the cab of a Case combine.
In any other year, most in this province would have thought little of our farmer-premier slipping away from his regular $173,885-a-year office job (that’s low, compared with other Canadian premiers) for a little weekend combining.
Inside the Marble Palace: The blue wall holds in Saskatchewan
Even as September harvest rolled around a year ago — before he reapplied for his day job during the 2020 provincial campaign — there would have been little fuss about Moe spending the weekend combining.
On Sept. 1, 2020, Saskatchewan had accumulated only 1,619 COVID-19 cases. Consider how close we came to hitting that number in this past weekend alone.
Moe’s government reported 1,044 new cases on Saturday and Sunday, (although it’s accurate to say Saskatchewan added 1,099 new cases because it added 55 previously unreported cases it released on Saturday).
Either way, it was a record COVID-19 weekend for Saskatchewan. This should be alarming to everyone in the province … especially the premier.
Ontario — where the province’s 14,789,778 citizens were doing a lot less combining — reported1,293 more cases this weekend. Saskatchewan, with a population of 1,179,906, had 1,044 new cases.
This province also saw seven more deaths (670 since the beginning of COVID-19 and 63 so far this month). As of Sunday, we had a record 4,864 active cases and 281 hospitalizations.
We should all hope and pray that there will not be serious farm accidents this fall. Our ICUs are full. Doctors and epidemiologists say we haven’t yet hit the peak of this fourth wave. Sadly, those ICU beds are being emptied by people dying.
By now, you get the disconnection emerging from Moe’s social media post this weekend — a big problem that will only further splinter a province already divided between left and right, urban and rural and (most critically, right now) vaccinated and unvaccinated.
About half the comments — presumably, from fans of the Saskatchewan Party premier or those who share Moe’s rural roots — were wildly enthusiastic about Moe’s post. One gets that.
City people can’t fully appreciate the joy of harvest that rewards you for a year’s sweat and soothes many more years of heartache in what can be a cruel way to make a living. Many of these people are already living in self-isolation because they have picked a job that feeds people. COVID-19 isn’t and has never been as big a worry.
But the other comments on Moe’s Facebook post were full of visceral anger over what they viewed as a less-than-subliminal message that all is well with at least half the province that is carrying on business as usual.
Sure, many were likely politically motivated in their criticism. But many were simply appalled Moe would use the forum he uses to broadcast all his COVID-19 policy pronouncements for nothing more than a little image polishing by reminding voters that he’s just a regular guy burdened by extraordinary circumstances.
As one non-partisan observer said: “I wish he would just bail.â€
Didn’t Moe hammer Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week for taking the summer off and leaving him burdened with the problem of COVID-19 on northern reserves? Didn’t Moe also demand doctors work harder to sell the vaccine message?
So wouldn’t a better photo op have been the premier at a pop-up vaccine clinic to deal with what is the lowest vaccination rate in the country?
Right now, Moe’s government is hiding modelling numbers from doctors, seeing adults in kids’ beds at the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital, cancelling paediatric surgeries and organ transplants and seeing massive transmission in kids with no provincewide guidelines on when school children need to self-isolate.
Shouldn’t we be hearing from Moe today? Shouldn’t we be hearing from Health Minister Paul Merriman, who has been silent for a month?
Really, the focus for Moe and his cabinet needs to be on their day jobs.
Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
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